@article{851937,
      recid = {851937},
      author = {Luke, Jenny M.,},
      title = {Delivered by midwives : African American midwifery in the  twentieth-century South /},
      pages = {x, 193 pages :},
      abstract = {""Catchin' babies" was merely one aspect of the broad role  of African American midwives in the twentieth-century  South. Yet, little has been written about the type of care  they provided or how midwifery and maternity care evolved  under the increasing presence of local and federal health  care structures. Using evidence from nursing, medical, and  public health journals of the era; primary sources from  state and county departments of health; and personal  accounts from varied practitioners, Delivered by Midwives:  African American Midwifery in the Twentieth-Century South  provides a new perspective on the childbirth experience of  African American women and their maternity care providers  during the twentieth century. Author Jenny M. Luke moves  beyond the usual racial dichotomies to expose a more  complex shift in childbirth culture, revealing the changing  expectations and agency of African American women in their  rejection of a two-tier maternity care system and their  demands to be part of an inclusive, desegregated society.  Moreover, Luke illuminates valuable aspects of a maternity  care model previously discarded in the name of progress.  High maternal and infant mortality rates led to the passage  of the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act  in 1921. This marked the first attempt by the federal  government to improve the welfare of mothers and babies.  Almost a century later, concern about maternal mortality  and persistent racial disparities have forced a  reassessment. Elements of the long-abandoned care model are  being reincorporated into modern practice, answering  current health care dilemmas by heeding lessons from the  past."--Provided by publisher.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/851937},
}